Mississippi QSO Party
Call: NO5W
Operator(s): NO5W W5GAI
Station: NO5W
Class: Mobile LP
QTH: LA
Operating Time (hrs): 10.5
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
80: 60
40: 374 1
20: 196 2
15:
10:
6:
2:
UHF:
----------------------------
Total: 630 3 0 Mults = 55 Total Score = 69,465
Club: LA Contest Club
Comments:
K3/100, HI-Q 4/80, 2002 Pathfinder, CQ/X 1.8.0.12
It's always fun to go traveling in these state QSO parties and having someone
to share the driving and operating certainly increases the fun factor. After
several years of doing the MS QP solo I was fortunate this year to have
Skip-W5GAI join me. Skip did a great job coming up to speed using the software
and the radio and antenna setup.
Due to a couple of breaks for gas and heading for supper with about 30 minutes
left in the party our total operating time was about 620 minutes. The party was
slow at times as indicated by the fact that only 400 of those 620 operating
minutes resulted in at least one addition to the log. Those additions to the
log came from 215 unique call signs and we appreciate each and every one of
those Qs but special appreciation goes to the following stations who
contributed more than half of the QSOs: N5NA(28), WB8WKQ(24), K0HNC(17),
WB5JID(17), W5TM(15), K5OT/2(14), N4CD(13), K9WA(13), KN4Y(12), VE3WG(12),
N2CQ(10), N1CC(10), W1END(10),K7ZYV(10), K9GDF(9), N8II(9), OM2VL(9), AD1C(8),
W4NZ(8), K4AMC(8), W8WVU(8), W0MU(7), W4IHI(7), K3WJV(7), TI8/AA8HH(6),
N4UP(6), NA2X(6),
KJ4IWZ(6), W5XX(5), KC3X(5), K5WK(5).
County-wise we covered every one of the 22 that were planned with some giving
much better results than others. Here's how that went.
Column Legend
1. County name
2. Number of QSOs from county
3. Initial ten-minute rate
4. First station in log
Column [1] [2] [3] [4]
PearlRiver 73 126 N5NA
Hancock 59 150 N5NA
JeffDavis 41 102 WA2LTH
Jackson 38 114 N1CC
Franklin 34 60 OM2VL
Covington 32 102 WQ6X
Forrest 32 36 W4NZ
Stone 29 90 K5OT/2
Lamar 29 60 WB8WKQ
Marion 29 126 K0HNC
Lincoln 27 60 DL3DXX
George 27 126 K0HNC
Greene 26 132 KA3QLF
Wilkinson 25 96 W0MU
Perry 25 60 W4NZ
Amite 24 66 N1KW
Adams 23 36 N5NA
Harrison 17 66 WH6YH
Lawrence 17 78 N4CD
Pike 15 72 W0BH
Walthall 10 42 K4AMC
Jones 9 48 N5NA
It looks like N5NA must have been following us on APRS as he was the leader in
the "first-responder" category.
The weather could not have been better and almost all of the Mississippi roads
we traveled were top notch. However, one stands out as being more of a cow-path
than an actual road but it led to one of our more memorable stories. I prefer
not to leave any donut holes in the counties activated and to keep Marion from
falling into that category we decided to take a little detour into Marion's far
northeast corner. We navigated the path for a few miles finally arriving at a
location that CQ/X said was in Marion and had been parked for about 30 minutes
on that path outside a home proudly decked out in a flag that looked like it
may have been used in that little disagreement between north and south back in
the 1860s, when along came a couple up the path towing a trailer loaded down
with a vehicle in serious need of rehabilitation. Pulling into their driveway
they gave us a little stare as not many vehicles with a big antenna have been
seen on the path, much less parked with strange beeps coming out. At that point
we decided that Marion had been worked out and headed on down the path to the
next county which featured paved roads. After about 10-15 minutes we made our
way into Sumrall to stop for gas. As we were about to pull away from the
station the couple pulled up beside us to express concern about our safety and
whether we had experienced trouble back there in their little corner of Marion.
We assured them we were just hobbyists out doing our crazy thing and after
explaining it to them they seemed satisfied and from the nodding of their heads
were in agreement that those boys didn't have any ulterior reason for being
parked on the road outside their little piece of Marion. We drove to our next
stopping point in Covington and assume they headed back to take a look at their
new vehicle rehabilitation project.
While the roads were excellent the noise from power lines was just outrageous,
so outrageous that you could not even tell whether someone was calling much
less make out their callsign. Apologies if you were calling and calling in
those periods and we did not answer. The good news in that area was Hancock
county were the noise was virtually non-existent. We decided that if we were
king, or even just governor, we would pass a decree that all counties in the
state must reduce their level of power line noise to that of Hancock county,
our final county.
So thanks again to Skip for going along and for all the Qs including several
from the MO QP operators who were having their own party. Next up for us will
be the Florida QSO Party with Ted-KN5O helping out with the driving and
operating. The FQP is without a doubt the most fun you can have in 20 hours of
mobile operating. Hope to see you in the log for that one on April 29-30.
73
Chuck-NO5W
Skip-W5GAI
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